Top Gear: Corvette Stingray vs Porsche 911

Top Gear Magazine recently got their hands on a 2014 Corvette Stingray and pitted it against its benchmarking target, the Porsche 911. They drove the cars throughout the UK countryside measuring the cars’ interiors, styling, and road manners against each other. If you follow the UK version of Top Gear you know they were luke-warm on the C6 Corvette. They loved the American V8 power, but lamented the transverse leaf spring suspension and even referred to the rear cargo cover as shower curtain.

So what did the folks across the pond think of the C7? Well, we’re happy to report that they were quite impressed with it. Their first impressions are the that Corvette “is the better cruiser of the two…”. They also mentioned that they achieved 34.3 mpg where the Porsche returned a tad over 30 mpg.

Next they turn their attention to the interiors. They refer to the Porsche’s cabin as “sober and aesthetic, ergonomically brilliant and strangely comforting” and describe the Stingray as “…feels a lot more exciting, if a lot busier and not quite as nicely finished as the 911.”

From there they went on to talk about the performance of the cars. They were surprised at the C7’s ability to “happily pull away from the Porsche without too much effort – especially given a short straight.” This is largely due to the 140ft-lb and 60hp advantage the Corvette holds over the 911. In our favorite quote of the whole article they describe the LT-1’s exhaust note as “pure sonic vandalism”. We’re not 100% sure that means, but it sounds cool so we agree with it. While fans of the Stingray’s power plant, they give the Porsche the nod in the steering and suspension departments.

We won’t give away all the details of the piece, but they do mention that “…the Corvette C7 Stingray is simply a damn fine sports car…” We couldn’t agree more.

Head on over to Top Gear to read the full article and get their wrap up of all the 911 on Stingray action.

Steve Burns is the self-appointed Chief of Operations at CorvetteBlogger’s Motor City Bureau. He is a lifelong Corvette enthusiast and has owned 3 Corvettes (so far). He is a NCRS member and judge and attends all the major Corvette shows each year.